Controversial Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has now been convicted and sentenced to 50 months in prison on prostitution-related charges.
Prosecutors had earlier pushed for an 11-year sentence, but Judge Arun Subramanian imposed just over four years following an emotional daylong hearing on Friday.
Combs’s lawyers had urged a far lighter penalty of 14 months, effectively time served, since the 55-year-old hip-hop star has already spent more than a year in custody in Brooklyn, according to CNN.
Before sentencing, Combs addressed the court, expressing remorse. “I am truly sorry,” he said, asking the judge for “another chance.”
He added, “I ask your honour for mercy. I beg your honour for mercy.”
In July, a jury acquitted Combs of the most serious charges, sex trafficking and racketeering but found him guilty of two counts of transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
His former girlfriend, singer Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, submitted a searing letter to the court.
She urged the judge to consider “the many lives that Sean Combs has upended with his abuse and control.”
Ventura described enduring years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in her relationship with Combs.
Along with another woman, identified as Jane, she said she was coerced into “freak-offs” — sexual marathons with hired men that Combs orchestrated and sometimes filmed.
“The entire courtroom watched actual footage of Combs kicking and beating me as I tried to run away from a freak off in 2016,” Ventura wrote.
She said she continues to suffer nightmares and flashbacks “on a regular, everyday basis.”
Prosecutor Christy Slavik argued that Combs has yet to take responsibility.
“His remorse was qualified. It’s as though he thinks the law doesn’t apply to him,” she told the court.
Slavik added that Combs had booked speaking engagements in Miami in anticipation of a lighter sentence, calling it “the height of hubris.”
In defence, attorney Nicole Westmoreland described Combs as “an inspiration” to the Black community and a social justice crusader.
“No, Combs is not larger than life.
“He’s just a human being. He’s made mistakes,” she said.
She insisted he was remorseful and argued, “It’s of no benefit to anyone to warehouse him in a prison.”
Combs’s six adult children also pleaded for leniency. His eldest, Quincy Brown, called him “a changed man.” One of his daughters, D’Lila Combs, appealed to the judge, “Please, please give our family the chance to heal together. Not as headlines but as human beings.”
The rap mogul, who sat emotionless as Judge Arun Subramanian finished reading his sentence, appeared to mouth the words “I love you, I’m sorry”, to his family.
This reaction is in direct contrast with his earlier ones. He once told his family, “I’m coming home.”
A stoic Combs sat defenseless as the judge sentenced him to over four years in prison after a day-long hearing, ending an eight-week trial that forever changed his public image.
“The court rejects the defense’s attempt to characterize what happened here as merely intimate, consensual experiences, or just a sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll story,” Subramanian said. “This was subjugation, and it drove both Ms. Ventura and Jane to thoughts of ending their lives.”
